Good grief. Coal is probably the cheapest fuel for generating electricity. His problem isn't coal, it's that the hippie libs have taken over and royally screwed California for decades now. They had it so screwed about ten years ago, the lights went out.
Either that, or you use wind to produce
That's great, but there are only so many places you can build dams, create lakes, etc that are needed. Here in the USA, we don't have many, if any, of those places left. And even if we did, the same folks that have screwed SMS and the other folks in CA, ie the hippies, would be there blocking construction because of the environmental impact. In fact, the hippies and Obama are screwing you folks in Canada right now, by blocking the Keystone pipeline. Better to ship oil by rail and have it run off the tracks, killing everyone, I guess.
We're paying about .17 here in NJ. At least it's better than California.
It starts with: "Hey kids ~ want to have less pH bounce, shinier, silkier water with no algae problems? But wait, there's more! You'll also be using half as much chlorine as you do now! Hard to believe?"
Basically you have choice of a pre-mixed solution that is ph neutral or buying borate and acid and adding them alternately to keep the ph from going up.
Don't any of you folks have Time of Day Rates? My off-peak rate here is about half the on-peak rate in the summer. Winter there isn't much difference. So I run my pool in the off-peak hours and keep the AC set higher in the on-peak and then turn it down after 8 at night till
1 in the afternoon the next day when the on-peak hits again.
We have it if you choose the electric company as your supplier, but I don't see any big bargain for most of us. Peak time is Noon to 8 PM Mon - Fri. The generation rate is. 11.86¢ for peak and 8.36¢ off peak. With another supplier, I pay 7.95¢ at any time. These are generation rates only. Add 8.6¢ for delivery.
If the other suppliers stated to offer it, then savings may happen.
They offer the option of Time-of-Use service but the peak rates under that rate plan are higher than the single-rate plan rates.
"Sunlight is the biggest consumer of chlorine, so the pool needs to be circulating when the sun is shining down on the pool. That way the chlorine is constantly moving around the pool."
The mistake many people make is to think that the sole reason to run the pump is to filter the water. It's not. The bigger reason is to keep the chlorine (or other sanitizer) circulating through the pool.
Unfortunately, the problem with a pool is that you must run the pump during the day, preferably at the hottest part of the day. There's little reason to run the pump at night unless you're doing something like an algae clean-up where the reason you're running the pump is solely to filter the water. A compromise would be to run it four hours in the morning before the peak rate kicks in at 1:00 p.m., then run it another 4 hours during the hot part of the day.
My neighbor has solar on his house and he generates enough electricity that his electricity bill is $0 even though he runs the pool pump at the proper time of day. You don't get money back for generating more electricity than you use.
The bottom line is that since the pool pump must be operating during peak rate time it's worse to be on the peak rate plan if you have a pool. It would cost 48-52¢ per KWH where I am.
The way to reduce the total cost is to:
a) circulate the same amount of water with less electricity. A lower speed pump run at half speed for twice as long pumps the same amount of water for about 75% of the electricity, and a variable speed pump saves even more electricity. See .
b) reduce the amount of water that needs to be circulated. You can do this by reducing the amount of sun hitting the water (with a pool cover), or by using chemicals that reduce the need to circulate the water.
Nonsense. Coal is cheap and has provided cheap electricity for a hundred years. .
It's nice that it works for you, because you have to appropriate natural resources. It's not like the USA has hundreds of reasonable hydro sites that could be developed. And any that can be, I can assure you the hippies will be there blocking those because of the environmental impact. Damming up rivers, creating huge artificial lakes have environmental consequences too.
I was wondering that too for our friends in CA. You would think with the super progressive rate structure they would have some lower rate at night. But maybe they have no smart metering.
That rate structure in CA reminds me of the income tax. The hippies pass these laws claiming it won't affect most people, just those that are running AC with the windows open or living in a 20,000 sq ft house. Then before long, you have rates that screw guys like SMS. Same thing with the income tax. When it was passed it only applied to incomes that would be the equivalent of $10mil+ today and it was just a couple of percent. Within a decade it applied to most people and the rate had skyrocketed, eventually reaching 90%.
Logically, I don't see why you would not want to do exactly the opposite. Why circulate the chlorine so the sun can destroy more of it? If the sun diminishes the chlorine in the top few inches, so what? In eight hours, the pump comes on and mixes it up again. The exception would be times when you have people using the pool, but when it's unoccupied it seems to me the better strategy is to filter at night. I've done it both ways and never noticed any difference.
Actually per the video, by cutting the flow rate in half, you only use 35% of the electricity. That's a huge savings. If you cut the flow rate to 1/4, you use only 17% of the electricity to move the same amount of water. BTW, good video find.
The fancy $1000 motor saves 17%, at the full 80GPM rate. Not clear how much it saves at the lower speeds. Also, with regard to the fancy motor, he compared it to a standard motor of unknown vintage. Even newer regular motors are somewhat more efficient. I just bought an Emerson dual speed that is rated as being an energy efficient design. I don't think it's going to make that 17% difference, but I would hope that it's maybe 5% or so better than a 15 year old motor.
The question with the fancy variable speed pumps is if they are worth the huge additional ~$1000 upfront cost. Here where we only have a 3 month season and electric is .18 kwh, I think the answer is no. But with .36 kwh rates and a long season, getting one of those and running it at 1/4 speed might have a reasonable payback period.
I wonder if anyone makes motors that are 1/4 speed that you could swap out with an existing pump? IDK how well that would work. If the old motor was moving 80 gpm and you put in a 1/4 speed motor, would it move 20 gpm? Maybe not. I think these variable speed pumps have some sensing whereby they adjust the motor speed to get the desired flow rate. The big negative I see with those is that they cost $1000+, they are loaded with electronics, they are in a somewhat hostile environment, could get damaged by a surge, etc and if they do a couple years in, you're out $1000. With my $190 dual speed, no such worries. That's why for me, no way they were worth the big additional cost.
There's no way to remove the borates, short of draining (like cyanuric acid) so removing them isn't an option. For pools in cold climates where you drain the pool for the winter than probably borates aren't practical because of the initial cost.
I tend to believe the guy at the pool store I go to (The Pool Guys) when it comes to the benefits of borates. This particular store has a big self-interest in minimizing recurring chemical usage because retail sales of chemicals and equipment are a minor part of their business. Most of their money comes from their pool maintenance business and the monthly fee is the same no matter how much the chemicals cost them. They are big fans of borate products like PoolProof (which they also have in very large sizes not normally sold to the public though they will sell these to the public) and big users of Orenda products which they buy in
275 gallon containers that are shipped to them on a pallet (and which they won't sell to retail customers--I've tried). They also sell higher percentage chlorine in returnable bottles for a lot less than the boxes of two disposable, lower-concentration, chlorine, sold at Home Depot or Leslie's (and it's fresher since it's delivered every couple of days from the factory).
I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories but this was on a web site: "The pool stores and chemical companies don't promote Borate use for the simple reason that it will cost them money. Selling a product that will allow a pool owner to use 40% or more less chemicals in their pools is not a smart business practice."
replying to sms, Pj wrote: Was looking at borate to my local pool stores eather act dumb or say they can't get it looking at ordering off amazon. How did you make out and there is a calculator that will figure the boxes and asid needed to do it the 20 mule way
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